Herodotus, 1.77

Greek Learning Greek
1

I have a question about the following sentence:

Κροῖσος δὲ μεμφθεὶς κατὰ τὸ πλῆθος τὸ ἑωυτοῦ στράτευμα (ἦν γάρ οἱ ὁ συμβαλὼν στρατὸς πολλὸν ἐλάσσων ἢ ὁ Κύρου), τοῦτο μεμφθείς, ὡς τῇ ὑστεραίῃ οὐκ ἐπειρᾶτο ἐπιὼν ὁ Κῦρος, ἀπήλαυνε ἐς τὰς Σάρδις ἐν νόῳ ἔχων παρακαλέσας μὲν Αἰγυπτίους κατὰ τὸ ὅρκιον (ἐποιήσατο γὰρ καὶ πρὸς Ἄμασιν βασιλεύοντα Αἰγύπτου συμμαχίην πρότερον ἤ περ πρὸς Λακεδαιμονίους), μεταπεμψάμενος δὲ καὶ Βαβυλωνίους (καὶ γὰρ πρὸς τούτους αὐτῷ ἐπεποίητο συμμαχίη, ἐτυράννευε δὲ τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον τῶν Βαβυλωνίων Λαβύνητος), ἐπαγγείλας δὲ καὶ Λακεδαιμονίοισι παρεῖναι ἐς χρόνον ῥητόν ἁλίσας τε δὴ τούτους καὶ τὴν ἑωυτοῦ συλλέξας στρατιὴν ἐνένωτο τὸν χειμῶνα παρείς, ἅμα τῷ ἔαρι στρατεύειν ἐπὶ τοὺς Πέρσας.

Quite a long sentence for Herodotus. The second part of the sentence hinges on ἐν νόῳ ἔχων (having in mind) that introduces a string of aorist participles: παρακαλέσας …μεταπεμψάμενος …ἐπαγγείλας …ἁλίσας…συλλέξας…and is later taken up again by ἐνένωτο. The first three of these (παρακαλέσας, μεταπεμψάμενος, ἐπαγγείλας) seem to indicate intent (‘having in mind to summon…to send for…to instruct’). If this is correct, I mean, if these participles do indicate intent or purpose, wouldn’t you normally expect a future instead of an aorist participle?

Or should I read ἐν νόῳ ἔχων …ἅμα τῷ ἔαρι στρατεύειν ἐπὶ τοὺς Πέρσας (‘having in mind to wage war against the Persians when spring arrives’) and take those aorist participles as subordonated temporal clauses: after having summoned…sent for…instructed etcera.

Oh, and best wishes to all of you!

2

This is a great example of what Aristotle called the “strung-out” style, λεξις ειρομενη, characteristic of Herodotus. The connectives help keep the structure clear. First παρακαλέσας μὲν …, μεταπεμψάμενος δὲ …, ἐπαγγείλας δὲ …, a string of three (or two plus one), all three participles amounting to much the same thing. Then ἁλίσας τε δὴ τουτους summarizes and recapitulates, τουτους encompassing all the objects of the preceding trio; and that participle is paired (simple και) with ξυλλέξας, so we end up with two groups of forces distinguished, his various allies’ (preliminarily subdivided) and his own.
After ἐν νόῳ ἔχων we were expecting an infinitive (possibly but not necessarily future), but first we get all those participles setting the stage for it. “Croesus drove back to Sardis with the intention (ἐν νόῳ ἔχων), after summoning A(…) and B(…) and C(…), and … and …". We still haven’t reached the infinitive governed by εν νοω εχων that we were waiting for (“with the intention of” what?), and by the time we’re through with all those subordinate participles and all those interposed explanatory parentheses εν νοω εχων is just too far back for the construction to be completed, so Herodotus leaves it behind and switches construction (“anacolouthon”), continuing with ενενωτο (“he’d formed the intention” ~ εν νοω ειχεν) as a main verb (which strictly speaking is ungrammatical) and finally brings the straggly sentence to a close, putting it out of its misery (rather as I see I’ve done with this one!). παρείς is subordinate to στρατευειν—at long last, our long awaited infinitive! “he intended, after letting the winter go by, to march against the Persians at the onset of Spring (i.e. “he intended to let the winter go by and to march …”).
Whew. It’s not an elegant sentence but it reads easily enough as it goes along, thanks to the articulating particles. A new start of a kind is made by αλισας τε δη.

The underlying construction, as I think you recognize, is “intending, having done ABC …, to do Z”, i.e. He intended to do ABC etc. and then to do Z. Even if the eventual infinitive were future the subordinate participles would be aorist. (It would be the same even if they weren’t temporal.) The only complication is that the construction gets messed up: “… intending, having done ABC … , he intended to do Z.”

And a Happy New Year to you Bart!
Michael

3

Thanks, Michael, for unpacking that sentence.

In fact I got that, but then I was confused by checking the translations in the Landmark Herodotus and the Loeb. Both translate those string of participles as if indicating intent: intending to do ABC…and then to do Z, instead of: intending, having done ABC…to do Z; which is a bit surprising for normally the Landmark translation at least is quite literal.

The sentence is a bit wobbly, isn’t it? Almost ‘aunt Betty style’, as it’s called in Dutch, seemingly close to spoken language and more what one expect of a story teller than a historian. This style can give an impression of naïveté, probably wholly incorrect. Very much the opposite of the long, craftfully constructed sentences of Cicero (I’m reading his third Catilinarian at the moment) that always seem to end on their feet.

4

A good question, isn’t it: What constitutes a “literary” style? Herodotus had few precedents, so he had to make up his own as he went. Generally we expect writing to be more “elevated” in style than everyday speech, with more formal and perhaps archaic vocabulary, and I don’t think Herodotus is an exception. But I think it’s true that in general we find more “conversational” turns of phrase in Greek prose than in our own modern writing. Two reasons at least come to mind: For a long time even after Herodotus, writers mainly expected their writings to be read aloud to a public. And another important thing is that they had neither punctuation nor smileys :sunglasses:, which they had to replace by other means.

Horrocks points out that on many occasions Herodotus borrows his vocabulary and expressions from Homer, which certainly contribute to giving his narrative the sort of dignity we expect to find in a historian. I’ve certainly noticed some Homeric turns of phrase, though I can’t remember any right now.

5

Herodotus style is marked, inter alia, by a preference for parataxis over hypotaxis, repetitions (for instance, in the sentence I asked about: μεμφθεὶς 2x and the pair ἐν νόῳ ἔχων and ἐνένωτο), and the frequent occurence of anakolouthon. It is indeed an interesting question if this is just his own, idiosyncratic style (i.e. he might very well have written otherwise) or if there’s an underlying reason, as you suggest. The fact that the Histories were written mainly to be read aloud to a public may seem a reasonable explanation at first sight, but I wonder if it is the correct one. After all the Greek orators too produced texts meant to be read aloud and wrote an altogether different kind of prose. The same goes for the lack of interpunction (and smileys!); it didn’t appear to hinder Thucydides to write in a style far removed from everyday speech.

Was it perhaps the influence of Homer, whose style is also paratactical? But then, why is Homer’s style paratactical? Surely that has something to do with the oral performance of the Iliad and Odyssey. Or has it? So, in conclusion -and not very surprising- I don’t know.

6

I’m not surprised if translators don’t allow Herodotus ungrammatical sentences, though it would be better if they did. But even if this sentence did provide an infinitive for εν νω εχων I hope no translation would retain the participles as participles. In English that would be ridiculously stilted and pretty well unreadable. Which Herodotus most definitely is not.

But a question: how frequent is anacoluthon in Herodotus? Not very frequent at all, I’d have thought, but I know there are instances (some of them eliminated by editors, perhaps rightly). It’s readily explicable here, of course, where the sentence has kind of gotten away from him. The syntactical switch to ενενωτο makes for clarity, and it’s all strongly suggestive of oral story-telling practice as you said. As you suggest, Herodotus’ running-on style is the polar opposite of Cicero’s periodic style.

Parataxis or no, though, Herodotus’ style is very different from Homer’s, isn’t it? You’d never find anything like this in Homer. There’s some good introductory remarks in Philomen “Greek accentuation” Probert’s new book on relative clauses, online I think.

From now I shall refer to λεξις ειρομενη as the Aunt Betty style. :slight_smile:

7

My post was a bit vague. I didn’t mean that Herodotus’ language is, all in all, very much like Homer’s, but that there are some borrowings. Of course, we don’t really have other contemporary Ionic prose, so we don’t exactly know what was typical or not, but well. One thing in Herodotus is that he when he goes on a digression, he typically closes it with a similar phrase (or essential idea) as the one he started it with, a technique not wholly different from Homeric ring composition. (I think there’s more on this in Horrocks) Then there are what I think are borrowings from Homeric/Epic vocabulary. The only one I can think about right now is (quite naturally!) related to sex, but I suppose μίσγω in the sense “have intercourse with” is a Homeric word. And I think occasionally Herodotus omits the augment of an aorist – perhaps that counts as a Homerism as well? If indeed Herodotus’ writings differed on these points from his vernacular, the reason would have been stylistic.

8

According to Van Groningen -writer of a commentary published in 1946 in Dutch of the entire Histories; who would have figured such a thing exists? - ‘not unfrequent’, whatever that means. He quotes three examples from Book I. He also discusses Herodotus’ style quite extensively and, funnily enough, he quotes the very sentence I asked about as an example of the λεξις ειρομενη and -as he calls it- the ‘participiale stijl’ (i.e. the style marked by the use of participles).

Van Groningen -he again- gives a list of examples, inter alia: μόρσιμον, οὐρανομήκης, ἐπὶ γήραος οὐδῳ, κακά ἀναπλῆσαι etc.. I agree that Herodotus’ circular way of telling things seems to echo Homer.

Btw, I found and purchased Van Groningen’s commentary only last week for next to nothing online. Better still, today I received the commentary by Heinrich Stein in the revised edition from 1901: not expensive at all, looks very helpful and in a beautiful copy used in Magdalene college by some Oxford don who was so kind as to leave all kind of interesting comments in the margin. 2016 is off to a good start! (Greekwise at least).

9

Thanks Bart. If there are only three anacolutha in the whole of bk.1 (it’s not quite clear from your report), I wouldn’t call that frequent or even not unfrequent, but infrequent.

The vocabulary items are very interesting.

μορσιμον. The sole instance is in the context of a quasi-oracle. A Babylonian taunted the besieging Persians from the battlements (cf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V7zbWNznbs): they’d take the city “when mules give birth,” ἐπεὰν ἡμίονοι τέκωσι—an adynaton. Which of course happened, and when it did, Ζωπύρῳ ἐδόκεε εἶναι ἁλώσιμος ἤδη ἡ Βαβυλών· σὺν γὰρ θεῷ ἐκεῖνόν τε εἰπεῖν καὶ ἑωυτῷ τεκεῖν τὴν ἡμίονον. ὡς δέ οἱ ἐδόκεε μόρσιμον εἶναι ἤδη τῇ Βαβυλῶνι ἁλίσκεσθαι, …: Zopyrus realised that it had been said συν θεῳ: it was μορσιμον, fated, that Babylon be taken (3.153-4). μορσιμον aptly echoes oracular language. It may (or may not) call to mind the awful foretelling of Patroclus’ fate by the talking horse Xanthus: μόρσιμόν ἐστι θεῷ τε καὶ ἀνέρι ἶφι δαμῆναι (19.417)—or perhaps some line predicting the fall of Troy?

You’ll enjoy the tale of Darius’ capture of Babylon, btw. It starts with the Babylonians’ method of preparing for a siege. To conserve food supplies, strangle all your women. Except your mother and a woman to bake your bread. (Mothers don’t bake bread, and nor, va sans dire, do men.) And from there it only gets better, with Zopyrus’ ever so devious betrayal of his doomed city.

ουρανομηκης. Not an exclusively poetic word, but a hapax in both Homer and Hdt, and there could be a reminiscence of the tall trees on Calypso’s island:
νήσου ἐπ’ ἐσχατιήν, ὅθι δένδρεα μακρὰ πεφύκει, …
κλήθρη τ’ αἴγειρός τ’, ἐλάτη τ’ ἦν οὐρανομήκης.
Hdt.: ἔστι δὲ ἔσωθεν ἄλσος δενδρέων μεγίστων πεφυτευμένον περὶ νηὸν μέγαν (a sacred grove around the temple of Boubastis—incidentally, Boubastis is the only city in the Nile delta to have yielded papyri, thanks to fire), and either side of the road leading to the temple of Hermes τῇ δὲ καὶ τῇ τῆς ὁδοῦ δένδρεα οὐρανομήκεα πέφυκε. But this may just be coincidence.

ἐπὶ γήραος οὐδῷ: clearly an epic tag. This seems the clearest case of epic language, whether specifically Homeric or not.

But κακά with ἀναπλῆσαι could very well be common Ionic lingo.

While Herodotus will surely have heard recitals of Homer, I think we have to be cautious in postulating Homeric “borrowings” in his prose.
He augments his aorists, except (acc. to the manuscript tradition) in verbs beginning with a diphthong or in some cases a single vowel (i.e. temporal augments). Quite different from Homer, where even the syllabic augment is entirely optional.

Your copy of Stein: If Magdalene not Magdalen, a Cambridge don. Either way, it sounds like a good purchase!

10

The way I see it, rightly or not, is not that he would consciously borrow words from Homer or from someone else (or at least not so most of the time), but that he wanted to elevate his narrative with vocabulary he felt was above his everyday language; epic poetry would be a natural source for more dignified words, but not to the exclusion of others.

Certainly some passages are also direct reminiscences of Homer, like perhaps ουρανομηκης, and some others that remind of Homer not so much because of the vocabulary but because of content, like for example Menelaus’ stay at Egypt in Odyssey IV must have influenced a passage in Herodotus’ account of Egypt (I can’t locate it right now and none of these books I’m reading has a proper index, I can try harder later if you want…).

Btw, you say “ça va sans dire”, don’t forget ça…

11

The way I see it, rightly or not, is not that he would consciously borrow words from Homer or from someone else (or at least not so most of the time), but that he wanted to elevate his narrative with vocabulary he felt was above his everyday language; epic poetry would be a natural source for more dignified words, but not to the exclusion of others.

Very plausible, but it’s none too easy to identify what “he felt was above his everyday language.”

Btw, you say “ça va sans dire”, don’t forget ça…

I know that, goes without saying.

12

Hi, Bart.
There’s an excellent text and grammatical commentary to Herodotus Book 1 in the Bryn Mawr Commentaries Series (ISBN: 0929524136). Written by George A. Sheets, it currently retails on Amazon.com for around 15 US Dollars. It’s well worth the price.

13

Thanks, Michael, for that interesting discussion of the alleged Homeric vocabulary I came up with.

Quite. I didn’t count them of course and was only echoing what I had just read in Van Groningen’s commentary. Having read only the first half of book I, I shouldn’t have made that sweeping generalisation about the abundancy of anacoluthon in Herodotus in the first place. Still, Herodotus prose often gives me the impression of fuzzy syntax, but maybe that’s just the contrast with the overcontrolled periodes of the Third Catilinarian that I’m also reading. Alternatively, it’s my comprehension of Herodotus’ syntax that’s fuzzy instead of the syntax itself.

Back to Van Groningen: the problem is that he makes those remarks about anacoluthon and Homeric vocabulary in his -quite extensive- introductory notes. In those notes he cites the three examples in book I that I mentioned and then writes that further instances will be discussed in the commentary. But since I only received the commentary last week I haven’t used it yet. I’ll try to read up however, and if anything interesting comes up (in connection to syntactical irregularities or vocabulary) I’ll report it in this thread.




I am ashamed to say that made me laugh. Poor Babyloniettes!

Magdalene, yes. Thanks.

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Thanks, Alexx. However I now already have 4 commentaries/ annotated editions at my disposal. Ça suffit.

15

Just for the record, there’s a new OCT by Nigel Wilson, and his notes on the text in a separate Studies. I haven’t yet seen either myself, but his OCT will be the standard text from now on, and the Studies the first place to look on textual questions.

16

I’ve actually seen Wilson’s Studies. I have no doubt that it must be a very valuable scholarly contribution, but for someone like me who just wants to read the text and understand the Greek it doesn’t really give any help. It’s really only about textual questions.